Local Economic Development Politics in France

Local development policy in France for much of the postwar era was dominated by the central state. Major initiatives were mounted which bypassed the local elected officials. From the 1970s, locally based development initiatives increased in number while centralized regional policy initiatives atrophied. The decentralization program of the 1980s increased local governments' economic powers while trying to rationalize them. Local efforts broke through the restrictions. Since the late 1980s, the central state has been trying to reintegrate local development initiatives into national economic policy. Capital mobility has intensified interurban competition for development in France, yet the role of the central state and the position of a powerful local elected elite integrated into national politics give French local development politics a different character from that found in North America.